Jen Campbell is a bestselling author and award-winning poet from the North East of England. To date, she has written ten books for adults and children spanning nonfiction, short stories, poetry and picture books. Asides from her writing, she regularly guest lectures on the history of fairy tales and the representation of disfigurement, talks about books on BBC radio, runs a hugely successful book review YouTube channel and a book club for TOAST. Her podcast BOOKS WITH JEN was an iTunes top 100 podcast. Editor Sam chatted to Jen about her literary influences, the undeniable influence of fairy tales on her writing and the power of literature to challenge negative perceptions of disfigurement, bodily difference and queerness.
If we were to take a rummage through your bookshelves, which books by women writers of the past would we find? And of all these writers, who has been the most influential to you?
A lot of my work revolves around the history of fairy tales, so an obvious (but nevertheless true) answer is Angela Carter. Nights at the Circus and her collection of fairy tales from around the world are my favourites by her. If we dive back even further than that, I have to give a shout out to Madame d’Aulnoy, who ran literary salons in the 1600s, specialised in fairy tales and was rumoured to be a spy.
Which books have been particularly significant for you and helped shape your future as a writer?
Three books that very much influenced me as a young teen, though, were Through the Looking Glass, His Dark Materials and When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. All three of those books taught me something about experimenting with narrative, with world-building, and merging the real with make-believe. All three are books I revisit every year or so.
At Lyonesse we are committed to championing the work of women who are breaking boundaries and challenging literary conventions. Which of your contemporaries do you particularly admire and enjoy reading and how do they push the limits of women’s literature?
I don’t think I could name just one. I’m a huge fan of Ali Smith. Having her write about our current political climate in her Seasonal Quartet these past four years has been such a comfort. Her words are liquid light. Lily Hoang and Maggie Nelson brilliantly push at the boundaries of creative nonfiction. Bernardine Evaristo and Fatima Farheen Mirza —in both of their most recent titles— paint character landscapes in such ambitious, tapestry-like ways.
References to folklore and fairy tales reoccur in your writing and you also regularly discuss fairy tales and their origins on your YouTube channel. Why do you think fairy tales continue to be so popular, especially for women writers?
I think fairy tales are popular for a variety of reasons; some of that is nostalgia. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy; we gift them to our children. But the reworking of fairy tales is especially popular with marginalised groups. I’m drawn to them less because of my identity as a woman, and more because I am a queer disabled woman. Gender-stereotyping in fairy tales is powerful to subvert, yes; but to me it is even more powerful to rewrite those lost tales where princesses end up with princesses; where men fall in love with mermen (after all, that’s what the history of The Little Mermaid is all about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuSqIpqJ-Xc); and where the villain doesn’t have a disfigurement as literary shorthand for their ‘evil.’ A fairy tale I find myself drawn back to time and time again is the Intuit myth of Sedna, who refused to marry a man, and was consequently thrown into the sea by her father. He cut off her fingers in a rage, and these fell into the ocean beside her. Those morphed into whales, sharks and fish, and Sedna grew up to be a goddess of the deep.
You chose to open The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night with a quote by Mary Shelley and the influence of Frankenstein can be felt in “Animals.” How did the novel inform your own writing?
Until the 1800s, anyone born with a disfigurement was medically called a monster. As someone with a rare form of ectodermal dysplasia, which means I have ectrodactyly (missing fingers), alopecia, and other things, I am interested in the dissection of what makes society see us as ‘human’ and ‘other’, where that line lies, and how it moves around. Frankenstein embodies that.
There are also several other experimentations with posthuman bodies in the collection which feature human-animal-nature metamorphoses. In “Animals,” we see how humans acquire different animal hearts and in “Plum Pie. Zombie Green, Yellow Bee. Purple Monster,” human teenagers are fused with plants. What does the posthuman body and human interactions with non-human species and nature offer your characters in contrast to binary identities?
I am passionate about the representation of bodily difference in fiction, both in the real sense (my stories have characters with ectrodactyly, others who are wheelchair users etc) and in the magical sense, too. Playing with bodily form, in this case in a short story about teenagers who sprout plants and are experimented on by tree surgeons, is a more abstract way to comment on disabled experiences, ownership of bodies and the history of the freak show.
You regular speak out about challenging ableism and promoting more positive representations of disfigurement in both literature and the mainstream media. How can we move towards representing disfigurement in a more positive light? And which other writers do you think are already doing this well?
The hashtag #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs pretty much sums it up. Own Voices work is very important; projects surrounding disability and disfigurement need to include those from within the communities they seek to represent. Lazy tropes such as ‘disfigurement = villainy’ need to go (think most horror films, every James Bond villain, the most recent adaptation of The Witches —more on that here https://www.buro247.com/culture/life/the-witches-remake-disfigurement — the list is endless). Check out the work that Changing Faces UK is doing. You can also find lots of book recommendations on my Youtube channel centring disability, disfigurement and deafness.
In the past few years you have published both short stories and poetry collections. What’s next? Are there any topics which you are especially keen to explore in your work?
I’m working on a few different things, none of which I can tell you too much about, I’m afraid (sorry!). I have a new book forthcoming September 2021, which is for older children and adults and which focuses on fairy tales from around the world. I’m also working on some nonfiction surrounding disfigurement and how that intersects with folklore, too.
Jen’s short story collection The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night is published by Two Roads, and her children’s picture book series, Franklin and Luna, is published by Thames & Hudson and illustrated by Katie Harnett. She is also the Sunday Times bestselling author of the Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops series, and The Bookshop Book. Her poetry collection The Girl Aquarium won an Eric Gregory Award, and the Jane Martin Poetry Prize. You can find more information about Jen’s work over on her website: www.jen-campbell.co.uk
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